Took last week off to get a little break after our big launch at work. It turned into a fairly busy period in between all the loafing on the couch.
Highlights:

Had a meeting with Ma and her giant dog rescue crew and got them introduced to my boss in case we can do some pro-bono work for them. We have a meeting scheduled for this Tuesday, so we'll see if anything comes of it.

Took Mingus in for shoulder x-rays to see if anything joint-related was making him gimpy. Turns out the joints look pretty darned good. Hooray no surgery for the dog.

I had a medical visit myself, but that warrants its own post... Coming soon... ;)

Firstly, it's worth noting that The Mother-in-Law has a new dog. Molly is a blue heeler mix of some sort. She's really sweet, though a bit crazy and fairly untrained. We're hopeful, though, since Australian Cattle Dogs are in the top ten for dog breed intelligence. ;)
Next on the docket are the mighty Rockies. Now, I'm not a baseball fan. I root for the Red Sox on principal alone. But c'mon! Who doesn't love a "hometown underdog does good" story? Best of all, I know one Phillies fan who is an extremely sore loser. This could be fun.

In general, Autumn is upon us. The transition seasons always get me fired up in one way or another.

The Wife and I are taking a lot of long walks with Mingus to try to shed some pounds and keep the dog happy.

I've barely been on the Bonneville this year, but it's OK. My favorite riding time is now, so hopefully I'll get in the saddle at least a few times. I wish I was like these guys.

I'm itching to start a home project or a woodworking project (or both) soon. Updates when I do.

My mother is turning into a crazy cat lady... Except it's with Great Danes.
The truth is she's gotten involved with the local Great Dane rescue and has ended up adopting a couple and fostering a couple. That's a whole lotta dog for one house. My dog, Mingus, doesn't much care to visit Grandmama's house anymore. ;)

The point of the post, though, is that she's gotten more involved in a professional capacity. Just one of those involvements is fund raising:

So, I've been busy, busy, busy with the whole Dane Rescue thing, and we are planning a dog walk in Cherry Creek State Park sometime in September. We're looking for corporate sponsors, t-shirt donors, pledge collectors, contributors to a silent auction, and of course walkers. If you have any contacts that might be able to help on any front, let me know.

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they'd learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck's team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The "smart" kids took the cop-out.

As a so-called "smart" kid, I can recognize that. Luckily, my upbringing also offered example after example of work ethic and perseverance.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, signed into law by George Bush the elder, led to creation of the ragingly popular Do Not Call List. But tucked away in the bill was another important provision that entitles consumers to take what's called a "private right of action." For each violation of the act, consumers can sue for a $500 penalty. Violations include calling after a consumer has told a company to stop, or failing to provide the consumer with a copy of the firmâ€™s Do Not Call policy.

That's almost enough to make me start answering those "Unknown Name / Unknown Number" calls I get every day.

So, suppose you're trying to get back in touch with a high school ex with whom you had remained friends but had lost contact since she got married and moved to Australia. You hit Google, right? Right.
If you're lucky, you find something like this year-old article from her local Aussie paper: Wilson hams it up at Mitzyâ€™s puppy school

Even animal behavioural trainer Mitzy Voiles thought there was more chance of pigs flying than attending one of her classes.

Man, Australia is awesome!

That said, I found a couple of email addresses for Mittsy (I don't remember if she ever actually used the 'z' spelling...). Bless the intarhiweb and all its glories.

Congrats to my darling Mother on the occasion of her adoption of a ponysuper-cool Great Dane named Bently (scroll to the bottom). He's just a puppy at 11 months old, which is actually kind of scary considering his size... He's a sweety though, and he puts a goofy grin on Ma's face.

Our dog, Mingus, plays a game we call "Get the kitty!", which generally consists of Mingus snapping/pawing at our cat, Chuck, until Chuck comes after him. From there it usually degenerates to Chuck lying on his back swinging an occasional paw at the dog if he comes close.

Man, it seems like Google has de-listed the BlahStuff (or at least ranked me down a ton). My traffic has dropped by more than half starting last Wednesday. If any of y'all that get regular Google hits felt like mentioning BS in a fresh post in the hopes to re-upping my Google-juice, I'd appreciate it.

Started working on a new double desk set-up for our office on Saturday. Got some nice 3/4" maple veneer plywood and glued some half-inch MDF on the bottom to strengthen it up a bit. Got to use my flush-cutting router bit for the first time, but then it got all cold and snowy. Gonna treat the edges with some strips of this cool laminated oak I have, so it should give a cool effect. Photos when there's something to see.

My tattoo has a few spots that will require touch-up. I wonder if it's just me, in general, or the forearm location, specifically, or a combo that cause me such problems in healing my tattoos.

My efforts at work on the superultramegaubercrazy-high priority project have come to a rather frustrating result so far thanks to interoperability problems between ColdFusion 5 and Oracle9. Every time we hit the Oracle9 database it causes the memory usage of the ColdFusion server to climb, with that memory never being released. This eventually causes the connection to the database to die with an S1001 Memory Allocation Error, which requires a ColdFusion restart to fix the problem (until the memory allocation builds back up again). Super-fucking-duper.

The Big Blue Couches rock. While we are trying to keep the pets off them, it's obviously futile. At least the puddles of Mingus hair come off the ultra-luscious blue microsuede without a problem. I'm just extra-pleased with the fact taht I can lie completely prostrate on the big sofa without touching either arm.

The Wife and I have been to the hotbox yoga a total of three times so far. I am enjoying it quite a bit, though I think I may have overstretched my back the last time out. We hope to squeeze a couple more classes into our two week trial period.

My motorcycle wrenching buddy Erik and his wife are inches away from having their baby boy. Very exciting times for them!

I'll be brining the second turkey of the month for Thanksgiving festivities starting tonight. If you haven't brined a turkey or at least eaten the product of said process, I can't even express how much you need to try it.

Breastfeeding appears to reduce diabetes risk -- Huh... Of course this is one of those studies that will eventually be conflicted by another study that says "breastfeeding give you brain tumors" or something. Kind of liek the red wine is good/bad for you studies.

Ummmm... (That little monkey in the blue jumper with his hand on the dude's thigh gives me the willies!)
Be sure to read the info, as well. (It seems "hyena people are either "entertainers" or armed robbers.)

Last year, in the journal Animal Cognition, the behavioral biologist Thomas Bugnyar described a twist in an experiment he was conducting with laboratory ravens. The birds' job was to find bits of cheese hidden in film canisters, then pry open the lids to get the food out. One raven, Hugin, was best at this, but a dominant bird, Munin, would rush over and steal his reward.

So Hugin changed his strategy: when the other bird came over, he went to empty canisters, pried them open and pretended to eat. While the dominant bird poked around in the wrong place, Hugin zipped back to where the food really was. He was deceiving Munin.

These are the first caterpillars known to eat snails or mollusks of any kind, an evolutionary adaptation likely enabled by the island chain's isolation. The insects are also the first caterpillars known to use silk to ensnare prey in a spiderlike fashion.

Thanks to spending my childhood summers in Destin, Florida -- home of an annual "shark rodeo" (at least back then), and recently a fatal shark attack -- I have actually seen more than a few extremely large sharks. While all of them were exceptionally impressive (especially the one that, in combination with a very large crowd, nearly brought down the weighing pier!), none looked quite as menacing as this thing caught near Martha's Vineyard.
I actually think the perception is mostly based on the way the fish are handled. The boys running the shark rodeo in Destin were pure efficiency when it came to stringing even the most massive sharks onto the scales. Whereas, the folks in Oak Bluffs look like they have no effing clue what they are going to do next with their behemoth.